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We examine whether anti-corruption intensity strengthens tax enforcement effectiveness in China. Using hand-collected anti-corruption data and aggregate tax enforcement data, which include the probability of tax audits and tax deficiencies, for a sample of 11,687 firm-year observations from 2012 to 2017, we find that anti-corruption intensity increases the deterrence role and the enforcement role of tax audits. We also identify the fear effect as a possible channel through which anti-corruption intensity affects tax enforcement effectiveness. Overall, the results indicate that anti-corruption intensity can improve a revenue agency's effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses regarding academic freedom in the context of authoritarian interference, particularly by the Chinese Communist Party. It mentions the threats to academic institutions, the suppression of political views, and various actions taken by the Chinese government that impede academic freedom. It emphasizes the need for immediate actions, including the closure of Confucius Institutes, revocation of organizational statuses.

Using content analysis to analyze vlogs released by the Chinese official media over COVID-19, this study explores how the government conducts emotional governance on social media during national trauma. The analysis unveils two archetypes (civilian hero and miracle government) that are adapted by official media outlets to convey emotions, including national responsibility, national pride, and healing patriotism, to consolidate the legitimacy of the regime. In addition, this study analyzes the sources of these vlogs and demonstrates that netizens are motivated by the authority's recognition to participate in vlog production. Thus, an "inter-embedded" emotional governance model characterized by technological innovation, casual style, and interactive format is formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The China–US financial contention or confrontation comes to the fore, given the pivotal role of finance in the international system and the current international order transition. Will there be destructive conflicts or a Thucydides Trap in China–US financial relations? By adopting a power analysis framework, the China–US financial contention is observed from four types of international financial power: structural, relational, institutional and ideational. The competition for these powers results in reform divergence of global financial governance and thus international financial insecurity. The contention and consequent insecurity, however, do not necessarily mean an inevitable 'Thucydides Trap' in China–US financial relations. Elaborated and issue-specific ways of management could alleviate the contention, including shunning RMB-USD strategic confrontation, refraining from a debt weapon and aggressive imbalance adjustment, enhancing the legitimacy of international financial institutions and avoiding a new Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive, personnel reshuffles, and institutional overhauls seem to mark a turning point in Beijing's long-running fight against 'localism' (difangzhuyi). Yet, key questions remain about the scope and effectiveness of efforts to rein in China's subnational officials. Has the Xi administration effectively combated localism by appointing more outsiders to provincial leadership teams? Or have strengthened oversight institutions made subnational officials more responsive to the center regardless of their individual backgrounds? To address these questions, this article distinguishes between different types of localism in contemporary China and the varying personnel 'risk factors' underlying them. Comparing the makeup of provincial party standing committees under Xi Jinping's 18th CPC Central Committee (2012–2017) with those from the 15–17th CPC Central Committees under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao (1997–2012), the analysis finds that Xi has accelerated personnel changes to address multiple forms of localism. At the same time, gaps in governance outcomes between local cadres and outsiders have faded since 2012 in several domains, implying that Xi-era institutional reforms have also played a role in curbing localism. Even under Xi, however, important personnel risk factors for localism have persisted and in some domains local-outsider differences in governance outcomes have actually increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural security has become a major watchword in the national security discourses of both the People's Republic of China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Within this discourse, overseas study has been imagined as a conduit for cultural and ideological subversion threatening the authority of the prevailing regimes. At the same time, overseas study has been actively encouraged by both the Chinese and Saudi states as an important element in their modernization projects. In the past two decades, the Chinese and Saudi overseas student populations have been some of the largest in the world. The article seeks to explore these tensions by examining the conceptualization and practice of cultural security in the PRC and Saudi Arabia through their management of overseas study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines popular nationalism and regime support in the Xi era by evaluating news comments from a major overseas Chinese website on the 2018 constitutional amendments removing presidential term limits. It finds that the event was not only contested among overseas and domestic Chinese, but also has alienated many nationalists who previously supported the regime. Even the subsequent pro-regime discourse is less focused on support for Xi or the regime, and more about distrust of the West and dissidents. However, some citizens have become less critical toward the regime out of the concern of external threats. The findings confirm the Xi Jinping effect on nationalist regime support, and show how China's international and domestic environments may activate nationalist sentiment differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares Xi Jinping with Deng Xiaoping from two perspectives: first, how their differing backgrounds influenced how they played the role. Second, how the situation of China in 1978 when Deng became the top leader differed from the situation in 2013 when Xi became the top leader and how this influenced the way they played their role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 1980s, it was clear that a rising China would challenge the interests and core values of the United States and the European Union. Cables and intelligence reports that were recently disclosed reveal numerous warnings about a future Chinese authoritarian pushback. The Western political leadership, however, brushed them aside. While paying lip service to constructive engagement, it was business first. The downside of that policy became clear too. But it took several years for the Western political leadership to recognise it and shift to balancing. Early balancing efforts, though, again seem inconsistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the elevated threat of protests during sensitive periods affect state repression in a high-capacity authoritarian regime? Drawing on a dataset of over 3,100 protests in three Chinese megacities, this study provides three key findings: first, the frequency of protests before and during national-level focal events and subsequent to national-level disruptive events is depressed, suggesting preemptive repression is taking place. Second, the likelihood of responsive repression is marginally reduced before and during local-level focal events and slightly elevated after national-level disruptive events. Third, contention is intensified when local political elites meet. Sensitive periods do not bring contention to a standstill and costly bursts of responsive repression were not observed. Stability maintenance during times of increased regime-vulnerability was thus less rigid than often assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Sino–Japanese relations have been on a recovery course, the deterioration of ties in the first one and a half decades since 2000 should not be forgotten. This article aims to unpack China's perception formation mechanism toward Japan during these turbulent fifteen years by introducing the perspective of strategic perception. Because China's strategic perception toward Japan is largely derived from its overall perceptions of the international system, this article focuses on China's strategic elites to systemically trace the evolution of China's perception of Japan and its policy implications, and to provide a new perception equilibrium that reduced the US factor in the formation of a mutual Sino–Japanese perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protesters in China may face two types of targets. One is the target of blame that is deemed responsible for causing their grievances, whereas the other is believed to be obligated to solve their grievances. Upward targeting occurs when citizens whose grievances are connected to lower-level authorities approach higher-level authorities for solutions. Based on a collection of over 12,000 instances of collective protest in China from 2000 to 2018, this study finds that some groups—such as small groups, veterans, and petitioners—are more likely to resort to upward targeting than others. However, collective actions directed at central authorities are more likely to be suppressed. Blame attribution and the difficulties in coordinating large-scale upward-targeting actions have combined to manifest protest patterns in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1987, at the 13th National Congress of the CCP, Zhao Ziyang proposed to separate the Party and the State. Like previous attempts at reform, however, this initiative was thwarted and it has been forgotten since the crackdown in 1989. This article compares that blueprint with a contrasting agenda for reform: the centralization of political and judicial power under Xi Jinping. Since 2013, that reform has been accompanied by contemporary anticorruption campaigns and the systematic restriction of civil and political rights. The article challenges the logic of 'authoritarian legality' as applied to China's contemporary reform and argues that, without reliable grassroots support, top-down supervisory reform will fail to achieve its stated aims, and judicial reform make no substantial progress. The article concludes that reinstating the separation of the Party and administration is the only way Chinese legal reform can make genuine progress under the existing regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines protest in China and identifies causally how the power structure among political leaders affects protest frequency at the county level. Protest consists of two major factors: grievances (internal) and political opportunities (external), and the power structure can influence protest through both factors. On the one hand, in counties with a more concentrated power structure, there is little separation of power, leading to more grievances and protests. On the other hand, powerful county leaders can discourage people from protesting by lowering their expectation of success, which results in fewer protests. The empirical evidence shows that the external factor dominates the internal factor: people are less likely to protest under the rule of a powerful leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's plan to establish a social credit system (SCS) has aroused the concern of building a surveillance state. Yet this view oversimplifies and misunderstands the essence of the SCS. The highest priorities of the SCS are promoting economic credibility and reinforcing court orders. Meanwhile, the SCS aims to steer citizens' social behaviors and interactions by utilizing a redlist system that introduces numerous moderate rewards. The SCS is also more lax in execution than in planning. It reflects a unique Chinese understanding of law, which treats law as a moral guide. This article also acknowledges the concerns for the SCS. Without actively preventing positive and negative invasions in the construction of the project, the SCS authorities will risk creating further mistrust in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares official statements on democracy and ordinary people's understandings of the term to examine whether government propaganda works to shape the democratic conceptions of the masses. The findings show that official narratives centered on 'good governance' have gradually been picked up by ordinary people over time. While the finding could be interpreted as solely the outcome of top-down state propaganda, the authors argue that the mechanism involves two-way communication whereby Chinese leaders have incorporated elements of traditional culture as well as the concerns of ordinary people into their narratives of democracy, leading to a convergence between the elite and the masses. This two-way process has allowed 'democracy with Chinese characteristics' to become a viable counterpoise to liberal democracy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twenty-first century, China and Vietnam have experienced heightened conflict over their disputes in the South China Sea. But Chinese policy and the writings of Chinese observers make clear that, for China, this conflict is a struggle between a great power and its smaller neighbor over China's demand for a sphere of influence on its borders. Since 1949, the People's Republic of China has consistently maintained that Vietnam reject strategic cooperation with an extra-regional power. For Vietnam, however, China's looming presence poses an existential threat that drives Vietnamese leaders to seek support from extra-regional powers. Since 2010, China has relied on coercive diplomacy and threats of crisis escalation to constrain Vietnamese reliance on outside powers, especially the United States, to challenge Chinese interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China are skillfully puffing themselves up to appear more economically, politically, and militarily powerful than they actually are—in particular, by presenting an outsized image of their ability to influence the politics of other countries. The success of this "authoritarian inflation" is clearly visible in Europe, the United States, and beyond. Distorted perceptions of authoritarian potency damage democratic confidence and help Russia and China to exert real influence, which turn undermines Western values and institutions. If left unchallenged, these false perceptions will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on system justification theory, this study examines the influence of political information obtained in different types of media on popular support for the Chinese political system through the mediation of nationalism. The analyses of the survey data demonstrated that obtaining political information from state-controlled media increased support for the political system through nationalist propaganda. The use of social media to obtain political information demonstrated contrasting effects. The exposure to political information through Weibo was negatively associated with political system support because of its negative effect on nationalism, whereas the use of WeChat to obtain political information had a positive effect on nationalism, thus increasing support for the political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguity in policy formulation is a strategy setup with multifarious institutional flexibilities that maintain the credibility of functioning institutions. In the framework of the 'credibility thesis' as introduced by Peter Ho, this article posits that Chinese policymakers intentionally or unintentionally made a smart choice in coining the highly ambiguous term 'TVEs' for promoting institutional reforms on property rights, and providing a unique buffering effect for a (comparatively) smooth policy transition towards increasingly liberal reform agendas. Furthermore, TVEs' content was evolving through time and consistently adapting to the interactions among various stakeholders in the reform process. The conceptual '3C' model of strategic ambiguity in policy formulation elaborated by the evidence of TVEs might be an approach for China's policy studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The truncated decision-making of China's public policy process will inevitably lead to palpable bargaining during implementation. However, there are few concerns and researches at present focus on bargaining intensity between government and social actors. Therefore, the Credibility Thesis is introduced to the policy process in this paper, and the differences of credibility perceived by the public, grassroots government and intermediate government are supposed to reflect the bargaining intensity among them. Based on the adjustability of policy targets and credibility differences, policy implementation is divided into eight types to explain diverse situations more systemically and effectively during policy implementation. Besides, taking prohibition of open burning of crop straw policy (POBSP) as an example, this paper measures the changes of credibility at three points of time during policy implementation and analyzes the bargaining situation among farmers and multi-level governments. The case study proves the applicability of the theoretical framework of the policy implementation based on credibility thesis. It can show the feedback procedure and mechanism of policy implementation, and provide a new perspective for the policy analysis and improving policy performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How street-level organizations enforce regulations carries important governance implications. Through reviewing the regulatory enforcement literature and categorizing it into three broad governance modes, this article discusses the individual and organizational capacity prerequisites for street-level organizations to enact the corresponding government–society relationship and improve governance outcomes. Through analyzing enforcement challenges faced by street-level officers in Beijing's recent food safety reform, the article also identifies the essential capacities for street-level organizations to regulate under a legal-hierarchical governance mode. The article hopes to inspire further research to uncover specific governance capacity requirements for other administrative organizations under different governance modes. Points for practitioners: Apart from policy effectiveness, government regulators should also sometimes pay attention to their impacts on governance. Despite frontline regulators' discretion, street-level organizations may improve governance outcomes by devising and implementing regulatory enforcement programs and strategies in line with the governance mode the government is engaged in as what they do enacts the specific government–society relationship in the governing process. Administrators in charge of street-level organizations may benefit from cultivating capacities essential to actualizing the respective governance mode. Absence of these capacities is likely to undermine governance effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abuse of power and corruption is prevalent in authoritarian countries. Does centralized management of courts serve to tie the hands of local bureaucrats? This article evaluates the effects of China's two waves of reform aimed to centralize the management of local courts. The authors randomly sampled 3,993 adjudication documents from over 70,000 administrative litigation cases. Difference-in-differences estimations demonstrate that the reform does not improve civil actors' probability of winning administrative litigations. When the police department is sued, the plaintiff's odds of winning the litigation is 84.28 percent lower. Besides, a one unit increase in the defendant's rank relative to the court decreases the plaintiff's win odds by 42.99 percent. These findings reveal a logic of conditional justice and cast doubts on the effectiveness of China's legal reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on in-depth interviews of Chinese veterans and specifically focusing on the cadets in Shanghai, this article explores the mechanism of emotional mobilization of this highly organized contentious group vis-à-vis other disorganized and dispersive one such as labors and homeowners. It reveals that strong emotional ties with comrades in troops and the despondency brought about by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) ineffective redress to their demands have rendered Chinese veterans, who see themselves rhetorically glorified and embodying heroic status in the country, protesting for their military identity and military rank recovery for decades. In order to defuse veterans' grievances, flexible governance, which stresses emotional care and affection by petition social workers, is deployed by the Party-state to settle disputes that beyond law and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past fifteen years, China has turned from a bystander of international peacekeeping operations (PKO) to one of their biggest contributors, often explained in terms of norm adoption or securing Chinese overseas investments. This article sketches the historical evolution of China's approach to peacekeeping through a role theory prism, explaining policy shifts through changing Chinese self-images and desired roles on the international stage. By studying influential academic and official discourses surrounding Chinese engagement with PKOs, it details processes of role contestation, and how peacekeeping became served to translate newly adopted roles into concrete policies. Finally, the article closes by examining China's growing ambitions as a peace-bringer and the emergence of an indigenous doctrine on the peace/development nexus that could undergird future Chinese agency in conflict settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internally, China is celebrating its successes while having to overcome its dilemmas and complications caused by those accomplishments; externally the nature of its rise is being questioned by some and emulated by others. Under the condition, one must have a more clear-eyed view of China's achievements thus far along with its challenges and opportunities for future success. The books reviewed in this article include William H. Overholt's China's Crisis of Success, Graham Allison's Destined for War and a collection edited by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi, The China Questions. Each of these volumes presents timely and authoritative analyses, covering a range of issues to generate a much-needed conversation to recognize China as it is without resorting to excessive alarmism or senseless optimism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Chinese political discourse, "positive energy" (zheng nengliang) is a popular expression that has embodied mainstream political ideology in China since 2012. This term has also become prominent on Douyin, a prominent Chinese short-video platform. By June 2018, over 500 Chinese governmental accounts on Douyin had promoted positive energy in videos, and the content was viewed over 1.6 billion times. Douyin even created a separate trending section, Positive Energy, for videos that promoted the dominant state ideology. This study argues that the Positive Energy feature on Douyin is significant. The Chinese government has accused and even permanently shut down several digital platforms for spreading "vulgarity" as the antithesis of positive energy. Using the app walkthrough method and a content analysis of over 800 videos collected from the Positive Energy section of Douyin, this study explores how Douyin promotes the Chinese state's political agenda by promoting a new form of playful patriotism online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the Chinese government's accelerated process of administrative reform and focuses on the decade-long effort by China to develop transfer policies with selected European nations. Providing more efficient public services and building a broad policy capacity in the face of growing internal and external challenges have prompted the Chinese government's active engagement in this policy-oriented learning and capacity transfer. New systems of governance through international cooperation programs have been explored, and new initiatives have been adopted. This article presents a case study of the China–Europe Public Administration program, which has served as a rich source of information for government department reform in China. The China–Europe Public Administration program is a policy hub that provides various examples of policy transfer regarding public management from the European Union to China. This article expands the voluntary policy transfer network model as a heuristic approach for understanding the administration reform process, especially regarding personnel sector development in China, and suggests that policy transfer is a rational analytical framework for studying progressive administrative reform in transitional states. In addition, it is observed that policy hubs, like the China–Europe Public Administration program, have become key tools for the internationalization of neoliberal public sector reforms. In doing so, this article contributes to the burgeoning policy transfer literature, which has previously paid little attention to the situation in China. Points for practitioners: Policy transfer is a rational tool for policymaking and policy innovation. This article explores the role of the China–Europe Public Administration program as an instrument of policy learning in public administration reform, particularly in the area of human resources development. Here, the policy transfer network approach proves to be a useful heuristic device for organizing the case study, as well as for studying the policy transfer processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on paradiplomacy, or sub-national diplomacy, has often focused on economics, trade, cooperation and politics. The deepening of strategic competition between the People's Republic of China and the United States has raised the stakes for sub-national diplomacy. While US-PRC strategic competition occurs primarily at the national level, the subnational level plays an important role in terms of creating opportunities for influence and advancing the strategic interests. In this article recent paradiplomacy in the Indo-Pacific is examined, as is the is the intersection of paradiplomacy with strategic competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]